Not the End of the World (40 page)

It was not going to be a simple matter of detonating a Nuclear bomb under the ocean. As France’s South Pacific undersea tests had demonstrated, doing that only got you a big splash and a whole load of radioactive fish. At both thera and Krakatoa, the opening of vast caldera sucked in billions of gallons of water, the sea sweeping in to fill the holes where landmasses had previously been. This surge created its own imbalance as the waters overfilled the depressions, and the countersurge back outwards was the force behind the waves.

The principal cause of seismic waves was crustal plate movement, the resultant earthquake forcing part of the seabed up or down. Undersea landslides – or turbidity currents – were another cause. Put simply, it wasn’t about moving water, but moving ground. Luther therefore needed to know two things: first, what level of sub‐
aquatic disturbance would be required to trigger a wave of the magnitude he had in mind; and second, where that disturbance might most effectively be wreaked. It was around then that he became a generous (if admittedly disingenuous) patron of ocean‐
geological research, and found the scientists he funded to be most helpful.

Sandra Biscane’s 3D‐
modelling programs demonstrated precisely what kind of sub‐
oceanic site Luther should be looking to plant his explosives in; then Mitchell Kramer went about finding one that met all the relevant criteria. The CalORI project was also beneficial to the credibility of his prediction, so that he could claim to have seen God’s preparatory handiwork writ large in the information the research vessel Gazes Also was bringing to light.

None of the scientists had any idea what they were really doing for him, but this was not a time for playing the percentages, so unfortunately they had to be added to the weight on his conscience necessary for the success of his divine mission. Biscane was neutralised as soon as Luther had what he needed. The CalORI team was allowed to continue its work for a while after it delivered, in case a better site was located and because Liskey had pointed out the advantages of a disappearance at sea rather than several conspicuously coincidental deaths back on land.

In the meantime a deal was set up in the Ukraine to purchase three ex‐
Soviet CHIB‐
class nuclear warheads, removed from vehicle‐
mounted tactical missiles, yielding a combined payload of 180 kilotons. Luther knew he could trust Liskey as long as their fates were bound together, but he wasn’t about to put any unnecessary temptation in the man’s way. Having shelled out the required millions for the bombs and organised their transport back to US waters, he wasn’t going to risk the Militia assassinating him and running off to have their own fun, especially as the intended means of planting the nukes – the Stella Maris – could just as easily be employed to bring them ashore on to US soil. Therefore, Liskey took possession of the warheads and supervised their transport aboard Luther’s private yacht, the Light of the World, but only after the Ukrainians received the second half of the agreed cash‐
transfer. The first half resulted in delivery – direct to Luther’s Kiev hotel room – of an encoded detonation device without which the warheads would not go off.

As well as detonators, Luther was also – and more ostensibly – in town to purchase religious artefacts: three statues that were relics of the region’s early Christian history, thought lost but once again discovered in the aftermath of Communism’s collapse. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit had been featured on a recent CFC documentary on the great Christian statuary of the world. The show ultimately lamented how little of it, despite the ebb and flow of time’s tides, had ended up in America, which was now the world’s most overtly Christian country. Luther St John was, as CFC viewers knew, in the Ukraine on a mission to begin redressing the balance.

Archaeologists and religious historians would have found less significance in the three statues than was suggested by the documentary’s gravitous content, as they had in fact been made in Arizona. The footage of them after their ‘discovery’ in a disused Kiev churchyard was shot in one of Luther’s own Bleachfield back lots where his Christian Family Entertainment division produced dramas for CFC. After that they were taken aboard Luther’s yacht, bound for the Ukraine, and transported to their point of ‘purchase’, which was filmed for later CFC transmission using locally hired actors.

The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, although worthless, were not without points of interest as works of sculpture. For one thing, not many statues tended to be made of lead. It wasn’t the lightest material when it came to transportation logistics, but then that would explain why he opted to send his own yacht around the world to collect them. Neither was lead very pleasing to the eye, but it did have radiation‐
insulating properties; not much of a consideration aesthetically, but extremely handy when you wanted to conceal a CHIB warhead inside.

Luther switched off the TV, like that would make it all go away.

The Light of the World was now off the coast of California. The timing of its voyage had been calculated for it to arrive during the AFFM and after the Festival of Light, at which Luther was able loudly to denounce the enemy one more time, as well as launch the protest movement that would be given irresistible force by the events to follow. He had been pouring particular condemnation on the filth‐
peddlers for months now – for as long, in fact, as he had been predicting the flood – but he needed that final, high‐
profile platform to underline God’s agenda for America before the action started.

Now the talking was over. Liskey’s men were ready to rendezvous with the Light as soon as it was at the correct co‐
ordinates. One phone call – maybe only a few hours from now – and it would be time to transmit the detonation codes, whereupon the last, short, digitised stage of the months‐
long countdown would begin. The moment of destiny was almost upon him, and its anticipation should have been consuming him.

But Luther could think of only one thing: Daniel Corby.

Long they had talked into that portentous night: debating, advocating, hypothesising. Luther’s eyes had been opened to the vision that would finally save this tormented country, the Lord poetically revealing Himself through one troubled patriot. Corby could not understand God’s message, of course, because he was never meant to. Corby was merely its vessel, the parchment God’s Word was inscribed upon. Luther was the sole intended recipient.

Unfortunately, it appeared Corby had not grasped that.

If Luther needed any confirmation of his fears, it came when he accessed the Communion files requested by the FBI. He had gone in to wipe Corby’s name before he submitted them, but it was already gone. In fact, all traces of the man had been excised from the entire CFC computer system – Corby had anticipated that the authorities would look for a connection, given the content of his communiqué. He was protecting himself, but he was trying to protect Luther too, bless his heart, because in Corby’s warped mind they were co‐
conspirators.

Luther saw now how divergent the two sides of an apparently harmonious conversation had really been. While he had been talking about fear of Allah, Corby was talking about fear of Muslims. While he was talking about the wrath of God, Corby was talking about the wrath of Christians. God had granted Luther a shining vision of how he could redeem America. Corby had seen only the shadows cast by that vision’s light, but it had been revelation enough to inspire a man like him.

Luther’s last words to him came clanking back like the chains of Marley’s ghost: ‘You can’t answer this question yourself, Daniel, and I’d caution you once more against the risks of trying. Maybe I won’t be able to answer it either. But if I do answer it, you’ll know – you alone – and you’ll be strong.’

He was simply telling the guy to keep his mouth shut about their conversation, and not to pull any stunts without Luther’s blessing – which he had no intention of ever giving.

Once Corby’s job at CFC was done Luther had all but forgotten the man, so thoroughly immersed was he in realising the vision God had granted him. Seeds soon became dwarfed by what they grew into, oak over acorn. It was therefore easy to forget that Corby was out there, let alone consider that he’d be combing Luther’s every broadcast word for what he thought was a signal.

And looking at it now, Luther’s calculated declamations of the movie business, the sharp‐
tongued Madeleine Witherson and in particular the AFFM must all have seemed pretty unambiguous to Corby. Whether he had meant to or not, he had given him the green light.

Corby had sure learned a heck of a lot about bomb‐
making (and other things) since that abortion clinic in Pocoima. But then, he had been exposed to far better information than the amateurish crap he’d downloaded from the Internet back in those days: on Luther’s recommendation, Liskey had contracted him to set up the Southland Militia’s websites.

So Corby certainly knew what he was doing this time, and so far he was getting what he wanted, too. But none of that guaranteed he would never be caught.

It was not comfortable to think of him a few years hence, chatting in his death‐
row cell to some FBI agent about how he and President St John had once discussed whether fatalities were acceptable in restoring the fear of God to America. Even the Feds might notice a certain parallel.

‘Hey, come to think of it, that tidal wave didn’t hurt St John’s career any, did it?’

Luther reached for the telephone. His conscience was about to get twelve stones heavier.

Cody sipped back the last of her beer and watched Mitch pouring Armagnac into three plastic tumblers and a china mug. They didn’t have glasses, and the fourth matching vessel had fallen casualty last Sunday when Coop, in a gregarious gesture of flamboyance and flammability, set fire to his brandy and melted the tumbler.

Cody’s legs were pleasantly sore, arms too. They ached with a hard‐
earned languid weight that felt so good; a satisfying heaviness to her arm as it raised the cold brown bottle to her salt‐
bitten lips, a pleasant, hanging lifelessness to her calf muscles. She had been in the water much of the day, working on the outside of the Sado Masochist, cleaning, adjusting, checking, preparing. Most of the morning had been spent underneath, a time‐
haze of concentration as she worked to eradicate the jamming problem that had been recurring with the umbilical socket on the belly of the sub. The umbilical linked the SM to Slave, their remote‐
controlled ‘drone’ submersible. Rock and shell fragments were getting trapped between the rubber insulating layers inside the socket, and these were being ground against the sides by the pull and twist of the cable. The rubber was being worn down – salt water didn’t help – and although there was no danger of water leakage (with so much insulation on the other side of the sub’s wall), the couplings linking lengths of the umbilical were catching on the exposed metal in the socket’s snout. This was preventing the slack cable from paying out, and occasionally causing Slave to writhe and squirm at the other end like a dog tied outside a grocery store.

‘OK, what we drinkin’ to?’ Mitch asked, holding out his cup across the table.

‘Luthah Saaaint John,’ barked Taylor, fake Southern accent, standing up and holding his brandy against Mitch’s.

‘Amen, brother,’ said Coop, joining them with the mug.

‘Amen,’ Cody concurred, raising her glass to the others, grinning.

Mitch said nothing. He gave a weak smile, avoiding, she noticed, Cody’s eyes. The others seemed too preoccupied (or maybe just too drunk) to acknowledge his discomfort.

‘Gaawd bless his soul,’ continued Taylor. ‘And when we’re all of us dead, may he look down upon us from Heaven, us suff’rin’ damned souls below in Hell, and give us a goddamm vulcanology grant!’

‘Praise the Lord!’

This time Mitch laughed, but there was sadness in it, if you knew what to look for. It was difficult to hide much from anyone who had been down there in the blackness with you. Down there in the abyss.

There was a unique intimacy of shared awe and shared quiet fear as you descended together in the sub, your words trading only navigational and technical observations, but your voices exchanging frank confessions of fragile humanity. The darkness and the silence, the vastnesses, the feeling of being so alien: it stripped down all the levels you ever built around yourself, the people you presented to the world, the people you thought you were, the civilisation you thought your species had achieved. It stripped you beyond naked. Beyond the flesh. Beyond the rational. Beyond the soul. You didn’t get to be female or male, black or white. You were barely a consciousness. All you were was there.

And whoever said that all the darkness in the universe couldn’t snuff the light of one candle had never seen the way that endless nothingness swallowed the blazing fires of the SM’s floods until they seemed like dying embers on a moonless forest floor.

Down there, you were grateful that there was someone beside you just because they reminded you of what a human being was. Reminding yourself that you were one too was usually the next step. You saw each other differently in the SM, while two avatars guided the sub, took the readings, the photographs, the samples, spoke to topside. It wasn’t like stepping outside of yourself: it was like the skin shed you. The avatar got on with the job, wore the clothes of the geologist or the seismologist, the colleague, the fellow professional. You became passengers, or maybe kids in the back seat. And the people you saw beside you … you didn’t fear them or feel threatened by them, like you would up above. Maybe it was because, down there, you were truly equal.

Equally insignificant.

Taylor was soon pouring second shots. ‘What I still don’t understand,’ he said, measuring out the last of the bottle, ‘is why he would spring for the SM if he was gonna shut the project down in a few weeks.’

‘Who knows, man?’ Cody offered. ‘Maybe he found himself a new hobby to spend his allowance on. Just got bored playing with his oceanography toys. We should look on the bright side. CalORI still got itself a state‐
of‐
the‐
art sub out of it, and more than just a paint job for the Gazes.’